


Ethereal

by IsaacTheGreat69



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fae AU, Mentions of Death, People Being Assholes, Some Swearing, Virgil is a fae, like vaguely romantic, relationship is kinda vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 12:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsaacTheGreat69/pseuds/IsaacTheGreat69
Summary: The day Virgil’s strange boy wandered into the forest would be a day forever etched into his memory.“Remember the first time we met?”Virgil nods, a small smile playing on his lips. The branches sway in the breeze and moonlight dances across both of their faces. “Like it was yesterday.”
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Comments: 11
Kudos: 180





	Ethereal

**Author's Note:**

> For @secretlypansexualmango! Thank you!!! <3

He’d been watching this strange man since he was nothing more than a strange little boy. Virgil couldn’t really pinpoint what had drawn him to this human, but as he began to watch him, he knew he wanted the human for himself. Perhaps it was the way the other humans in his village avoided the boy, or how the adults became angry if they saw the child with their own children. Virgil felt that perhaps this strange boy, who was shunned and outcasted by his own kind, might understand the fae better than anyone.

That didn’t mean that he could just walk up to the human and invite him to stay with him. Many villages - including this one - had employed measures to make sure the fae couldn’t enter, and no one dared venture into the forest alone anymore. 

Well, almost no one.

The day Virgil’s strange boy wandered into the forest would be a day forever etched into his memory. It had been a few years since Virgil began watching him from the trees. The boy was older, taller, more gangly, but still a child regardless. His face held none of the fear or trepidation of his peers, who watched from a safe distance at the outskirts of their village. As Virgil curiously watched perched in his tree, he wondered if the strange boy was doing this to gain some sort of favor with the other children. Though that didn’t quite seem… right. There was something else. 

Virgil silently descended from the trees, his bare feet landing softly on the moss-covered earth. He follows silently behind the strange boy as he wanders further into the forest, until they’re unable to see the village nor its children through the trees. This further confirms to Virgil that this isn’t about making friends. So why was he here? 

The strange boy stops suddenly and turns in a circle, as if looking for something. The child mutters under his breath, but Virgil doesn’t catch what he says before he starts off again towards the left. 

But wait, that’s…. 

Virgil rushes to follow, catching up as the stone circle comes into view. Any other time Virgil would have let the unsuspecting human wander into the circle to meet their fate on the other end, but for some reason he couldn’t find it in himself to do that to this strange boy. 

Virgil grabs the boy’s arm before he can walk into the circle, pulling him back. “Hey, be careful,” he says, letting go of the strange boy’s arm as he turns around. 

The boy crosses his arms and huffs, narrowing his eyes at Virgil. 

“What’d ya do that for?”

Virgil blinks. “You were about to walk into a faerie circle.”

“So?”

Was this kid for real?

“You know, if you do that, you can never come back.”

“And?”

“Wouldn’t you miss your mother?”

Ah yes, the strange boy’s mother. Probably the only human in the village who cared about him, from what Virgil had gathered. The boy opens and closes his mouth, then huffs. 

“Why are you out here by yourself? Don’t you know the fae live in these woods?”

The boy shrugs, looking away. “Yeah I know, but I don’t care. They can take me if they want.”

Virgil studies his strange boy for a moment before asking what he’s been wondering for years. “Why do the others in your village seem to hate you?”

The boy sighs as he settles between two large roots under the nearest tree. “My mother wasn’t married when I was born, and she still isn’t. The people in the village say that makes her a bad person, which is stupid.”

“Why do they care if she’s married or not? It doesn’t make either of you two any different than anyone else in that village.”

The boy nods vigorously. “Exactly.”

Virgil hums. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Remus,” the child answers without hesitation. 

Huh. Virgil thought that would have been harder. The fae shakes the thought away as he looks at Remus.

“Go home, before your mother gets worried.”

As if on cue, a woman calls out Remus’ name. Remus sighs. 

“Go home, Remus.” 

Remus shivers at the strange feeling of hearing the fae use his name. The sensation it gives him. Hearing his mother call him again, the child turns to leave and walks out of the forest without looking back. 

* * *

The next time Virgil and Remus interact, the human is older. He’s what humans refer to as a “teenager”; he’s a little taller, has some muscle to him, the beginnings of facial hair, and his voice cracks occasionally. Virgil briefly wonders why humans’ voices change in the first place, but he supposes it isn’t important. It’s late at night as Virgil thinks about how he hasn’t seen Remus much lately. Maybe the boy was sick? Or he’d left for a trip while Virgil wasn’t looking? 

There’s a rustling down below. As Virgil looks down he finds himself wondering - as silly as it is - if his thoughts had summoned the human to him. There Remus was, walking through the dark forest just as he had years before, only this time with more determination and much more supplies. He had a pack thrown across his back, with some sort of tool strapped to his belt. He was carrying a torch to see in the dark. Virgil watched curiously as Remus looked around before heading off in another direction, and before he could think anything of it the fae began to follow him from above. 

Virgil effortlessly traveled through the branches, swinging from branch to branch, walking along their lengths as if he weighed nothing. His feet barely shaking a leaf as they grazed the wood. Remus moved almost as smoothly along the forest floor, stepping over roots and avoiding shrubbery like he’d grown up in the forest instead of at its side.

Honestly, that just made Virgil like him more. 

Remus stops suddenly, and Virgil nearly misses it in his attempt to keep up the pace. When he realizes, Remus is crouched down near the earth and he thinks the human has somehow injured himself. He descends from the trees, landing softly beside him. 

“Remus?”

A shiver goes through the human and he looks up, grasping a plant in one hand. His eyes widen at the sight of the man he’d seen as a child. The thin, delicate, beautiful features gracing a face that hasn’t seemed to age a day. It’d been an embarrassing amount of time before Remus had realized the man he met as a child was a fae, but staring at him now, he had no doubt it was true. “Oh, it’s you.” He stands up, and the slightly damp earth clings to his pants. For some reason Virgil wants to brush it off, smooth out his hair, and wrap a pelt around him. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in a while, but Virgil isn’t very surprised by that. Remus hasn’t liked bathing since he was a child. 

“What are you doing out here?”

Remus shrugs. “Picking herbs.”

Virgil looked down at the plant in Remus’ fist, then back up at his face. “Why?”

“My mother is sick, and none of the assholes in the village were willing to come here to get the medicine she needs.”

Virgil’s gaze softens. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Remus just shrugs. Virgil looks at the plant again. “How do you know what plants will help her?”

Another shrug. “The doctor said they would.”

“How does he know?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Is this what you’ve been doing? Talking to strange doctors and looking for plants?”

Remus nods. “I’m old enough to start working now, so I’ve been helping out in the fields to pay for the doctor.”

Virgil is at a loss for words. Humans have never made much sense to him; selfless one moment, then more selfish than any living thing the next. But that’s not why he finds himself unable to speak. 

With a soft ray of light filtering through the trees down upon the two of them, Remus looks almost inhuman. His soft skin seems to glow, the lines of his jaw, nose, and lips stand out more. In his eyes dance the sharp senses he’d seen as Remus navigated the wild forest floor and the strong spirit of a young man who hadn’t had it easy for a day in his life. 

He almost looked like a fae.

Virgil sends him home after that with more than enough plants. He isn’t really sure which ones will help Remus’ mother, but for some reason he wants to help them however he can.

* * *

For years after that encounter, Virgil watches from the forest as Remus and his mother live their lives. Remus’ mother doesn’t leave the house because of her illness, but Virgil can see her moving about their house sometimes if he really focuses. The villagers are a little nicer to Remus, but only because he handles any repairs or manual labor anyone needs in exchange for food and herbs. Virgil watches Remus grow taller, watches his muscles grow and the facial hair come in. He even watches with surprise as Remus turns down a couple of village girls. 

Then, one day, Remus doesn’t leave the house, and Virgil doesn’t see his mother moving around. 

This continues for a week, and then two, until it’s nearing a month. Virgil begins to wonder if Remus caught the illness his mother had. Was his strange, special, beautiful human dead? Had he caught that strange ailment and suffered alone with no-one to help him? What were his last thoughts? Did he have any regrets? Any resentments? 

Virgil sits under the same tree Remus had the day they first met, staring up at the stars. His heart is full of more emotions than he thinks he’s ever felt in his entire life. Thoughts and feelings he doesn’t know the names of swimming around, weighing him down, leaving him unable to process or cope. He wants to storm into the village and kill the humans, burn down their shabby homes. He wants to cry and scream at the moon like a wounded animal. He wants to see Remus one last time and hold him close. 

Even if his body is cold with death.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by the rustling of foliage. Virgil closes his eyes to listen, the sound coming closer, somewhere to his left. It’s probably just a deer; humans don’t wander these woods  anymore . The rustling quiets and then stops, and he gets the sense that the deer is staring at him. It happens sometimes. After all, fae aren’t exactly of this world, and animals can sense this better than any human. Virgil opens his eyes, surprised to see not a doe or stag, but Remus, standing over him, looking downtrodden and tired but expectant. 

“Remus.”

A shiver goes down the man’s back. His skin carries a slight tan, his muscles are more defined, his face more shallow but not scarily so. Stubble along his jaw makes it clear that he hasn’t shaved for at least a week. Despite the absolute brow-beaten appearance of the human before him, Virgil can still see it. The fire in his eyes, the determination, the strong spirit that had made him speechless years ago. 

“My mother is dead.”

There’s sorrow in the man’s voice, but it’s clear that Remus has seen the worst of his grief and is beginning to come out of it. His tone says ‘It’s a sad situation, and I’m sad, but I’ll be okay’.

“I’m sorry.” 

That’s all Virgil can say. He doesn’t have any experience with grief. Well, aside from the two days he was sure Remus was dead. But what is two days to a fae that has lived through thousands?

“I have nothing left in this village.”

“No, it seems you don’t.” 

Remus looks to the faerie circle, the one Virgil had kept him from entering when he was a child. He looks back to the fae who’s features haven’t changed one bit since that day, seemingly suspended in time. “Remember the first time we met?”

Virgil nods, a small smile playing on his lips. The branches sway in the breeze and moonlight dances across both of their faces. “Like it was yesterday.”

“I almost walked into the faerie circle.”

“I know.”

“I wanted the faeries to take me.”

“Why?”

“I wanted the fae to eat me.”

Virgil smiles in amusement. “What a strange wish for a child to have.”

Remus smirks in return. “Well, I was a strange child.”

Virgil slowly gets to his feet. He looks Remus over, his beautiful, strong, strange human, and tentatively takes his hand. “Do you want to leave the village, Remus?”

Remus shivers. He can’t lie, not when Virgil says his name. He knows this. He knows a lot about the fae. “Yes.”

“Will you come with me?”

Remus meets Virgil’s eyes, bright with moonlight. “Tell me your name and I will.”

Virgil searches Remus’ gaze. Should he? Names held power, after all. Did he trust Remus to know his name? To hold that power over him? 

“Virgil.” Yes.

Remus smiles. Virgil can’t remember the last time he’s seen Remus smile, and it takes his breath away. 

“What are we waiting for then, Virgil? Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first ever time writing Remus  
Since we don't know much about him as a character I didn't exactly go out of my way to make content  
I hope it's alright!


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